


Bend or Break

by scarfy36



Category: Glee
Genre: Girl Most Likely AU, M/M, past nick/quinn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 05:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3197702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarfy36/pseuds/scarfy36
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Girl Most Likely AU: Nick gets dumped and ends up moving back in with Kurt, Blaine and Jeff, their hot housemate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bend or Break

“Nick, I don’t know how to say this,” Quinn paused the movie they had been watching, turning to her boyfriend. “I think we should just be friends.”

“What?”

“I think we should break up.”

“What, why?” Nick was baffled.

“We just don’t have chemistry anymore, Nick,” Quinn said, eyebrows creased in her sympathetic frown. “I’m really sorry.”

OoO

“ _Hey, Nick it’s Blaine. I heard about the break up and I’m really sorry, man. Call me back if you need a guy’s night.”_

_OoO_

_“It’s Blaine again. I get that you’re upset but you can’t stay in your apartment forever. I told Schue you had the flu and couldn’t perform so you owe me.”_

_OoO_

“ _Nick, pick up your phone. If you don’t call me back I’m coming to forcibly remove you from your house._ ”

OoO

“Leave me alone!” Nick heard the voice – a woman trying and failing to keep the panic out of her tone – as he left the bar he had taken to frequenting when he was able to leave the house.

“Aww come on, what’s the matter, beautiful?” a deeper voice crooned and Nick could tell exactly what was happening.

Nick knew he should keep walking home. He knew that the guy was bigger and probably stronger than him. He knew that he had lost most of his coordination after his fifth beer. And yet he turned around and shoved the man in the street behind him.

“What the hell do you want?” he sneered, shoving Nick back but still half-focused on the girl trying to back away from him.

Nick swayed a little on his feet before swinging his fist and watching it collide with the other guy’s face. “She said to leave her alone,” he said, surprising himself by not slurring the words.

Still reeling from the sting on his knuckles through his dulled senses he didn’t notice the other guy’s retaliating jab until he felt it below his eye.

Instinct took over and Nick took another swing at the guy – this time aimed at his gut – but he missed, the other man obviously more alert than Nick. The other guy swung again and winded Nick, who fell to his knees. Nick felt like his gut was on fire when the other guy started kicking, but he managed to somehow knock the other guy’s feet out from under him.

At some point in the commotion they had attracted a nearby police officer’s attention, and he lifted Nick from the ground and restrained him. Nick struggled slightly against the hold, slurring slightly as he argued, “I didn’t even do anything.”

OoO

“Duval,” the officer called him through the bars of the holding cell, Blaine walking in behind him.

“While I’m glad you finally called me back, next time you could just use your cell phone,” Blaine said, inspecting the bruises on Nick’s face as he spoke.

The officer unlocked the door and let Nick out, and he followed Blaine out to his car. “I’ll pay you back for this, I promise.”

“Just please don’t get to this point again,” Blaine said, his puppy dog eyes pleading.

Nick just sighed in response, getting into the passenger side of Blaine’s car.

“I’m bringing you to my place, I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave you alone in your apartment,” Blaine informed him.

“Come on, I spent the night in a holding cell,” Nick tried to reason. “I’ve learnt my lesson.”

“There are too many memories between you and Quinn in your apartment. It’s not good for you to stay there alone.”

 “You and Kurt still have a spare room?”

“Since Trent moved out, yeah,” Blaine nodded.

“I suppose temporarily staying with you wouldn’t be too bad,” Nick caved.

“Good,” Blaine smiled in victory. “I hope you still have some clothes at home because you smell like beer and piss.”

Nick rolled his eyes at his friend and got out of the car, walking up the familiar path to Blaine and Kurt’s house. It had once been his and Trent’s house too, back when they all lived together in college, but the two of them had moved out separately after graduating.

Blaine and Kurt had claimed the master bedroom on the ground floor and Nick walked the familiar footsteps up to his old room, the bigger of the upstairs bedrooms. He was exhausted, his face and gut hurt and Blaine wasn’t wrong about what he smelt like, but all of that was forgotten when he heard moaning and panting coming from his old room.

He shoved the door open and found two shirtless guys on the bed, their hands all over each other and clearly on their way to losing the rest of their clothes.

“What the hell?” Nick asked.

One of the men – a blonde with an unfamiliar yet attractive face –looked up at him in surprise, his lips swollen slightly from kissing. “Who are you?”

“This is my room.”

“Oh my god, Nick?” the other man – brown haired with a face that was very familiar to Nick – looked up at him and Nick realised that it was Sebastian. Sebastian, who he hadn’t seen since high school, was in his old room with a shirtless guy.

“I’m going to puke again.”

“Nick, don’t go into your room!” Blaine called up the stairs.

“Too late,” Nick replied weakly, leaning against the doorjamb in a gesture of exhaustion.

“Sorry, Jeff,” Sebastian said, pulling his shirt back on. “I really should go.”

“Nick,” Blaine said, panting slightly from the stairs. He looked surprised but not worried when he saw the hastily dressed Sebastian passing him at the top of the staircase. “The spare room is Trent’s old room. Jeff’s in the other one.”

“Oh,” was all Nick could articulate.

“Go shower, I don’t want the house smelling like the holding cell,” Blaine nudged him.

As he walked to the bathroom, Nick thought he could hear Jeff whisper, “holding cell?”

He closed the bathroom door and leant back against it, his head hitting the wood with a soft thud. After a moment, he found the energy to stand back up and strip off for the shower, welcoming the warm spray to soothe his aching mind and body. He lathered up with soap and shampooed his hair, trying to get the terrible smell off.

He knew that he couldn’t take too long, the hot water would start to run out before long and he owed Blaine an apology.

Turning the water off, he stepped out of the shower and picked up his towel, looking at his body in the mirror on the wall and regretting it immediately.

He looked terrible. He hadn’t shaved in days, the bruise on his face had blossomed dark purple, and there were matching ones on his chest and stomach.

Just as he was deciding whether he could wear his clothes again, there was a knock on the door. “Kurt told me to bring you some clean clothes,” the voice told him. He didn’t recognise the speaker so he assumed it was Jeff.

“Thanks,” Nick said, opening the door far enough for him to pass them through. As he dressed in some of his old clothes he began wondering about Jeff. He wondered how long he had been living here and how he had met Blaine or Kurt. His mind also questioned the reappearance of Sebastian, but he didn’t want think too hard about him and Jeff in his old room. Half-naked and together. In his old room.

When Nick returned downstairs, freshly showered and shaven, Blaine, Kurt and Jeff were all sitting around the kitchen table, cups of coffee in hand.

“What time is it?” Nick asked, grabbing his own mug and filling it with coffee from the pot.

“Almost nine,” Kurt answered him.

“…what day is it?”

“Saturday,” Blaine replied. Nick’s eyes widened in shock before he nodded.

“What happened, Nick?” Kurt asked, his voice soft with concern.

“Some guy was harassing a girl and I tried to stop him and then we kind of got into a fight,” Nick explained.

“How much had you had to drink?” Kurt asked.

“Just last night or all week?”

“I don’t want to know,” Blaine interrupted. “Nick, you need to understand that drinking like that won’t fix anything.”

“It’s not going to bring Quinn back, and it’s not going to let you move on,” Kurt added.

“It’s the perfect distraction though,” Jeff shrugged.

“So is someone going to tell me who you are and why you were half naked in my old room with _Sebastian_ of all people?” Nick asked, finally addressing the other person in the room.

“I’ve been here for the past three months,” Jeff explained.  “I bartend at the club where you and Blaine perform, so when Blaine was talking about having a room for rent I took it.”

“Oh,” Nick nodded. “Good.”

“And Sebastian and I have been seeing each other on and off since we met in college.”

“So you’re on again?” Nick asked.

Jeff gave a non-committal shrug, “it’s all pretty casual.”

“You missed your calling as a police interrogator, Nick,” Kurt smirked.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I should go upstairs and sleep.”

“Are you coming to work tonight?” Blaine asked. “I can only lie to Schue for so long.”

Nick deliberated for a moment before realising that he didn’t have an excuse to miss any more work. “I’ll be there. I could be a little rusty, but I’ll do my best.”

“It’ll be good to have you back,” Blaine smiles. “Though Thad may not want to give up his second solo.”

“I’ll be there to fight him for it if I need to,” Nick laughed. It shocked him to realise that that was the first time he’d smiled genuinely, let alone laughed, since Quinn had dumped him.

“We should let you get some sleep then, I suppose,” Kurt suggested and Nick nodded, standing up from the table.

It didn’t take long for Nick to undress and flop onto the bed, and even less time to fall asleep. Between the excessive drinking and the nights of painful silence, Nick couldn’t remember the last time he had had a proper night of sleep.

OoO

“Blaine sent me to wake you up, and boy am I enjoying the view.”

Nick rolled onto his back, blinking his eyes open. “What?” he asked, his voice thick with sleep.

“You need to get up if you want to eat before work,” Jeff repeated. “And you stick your ass up when you sleep. You have a nice ass.”

“Uh, right,” Nick nodded slowly. “Thanks.”

When Jeff disappeared downstairs, Nick checked his phone for the time and saw that Jeff was right, he didn’t have long before he had to leave for work.

He threw on his clothes from before and headed downstairs, gratefully accepting the plate of food Kurt offered him.

“You’re going to have to do something about your face, you realise,” Kurt pointed out. “You can’t go onstage with it like that.”

“I’ll cover it when we get there,” Blaine decided. “I’ve had years of practice covering hickeys so it shouldn’t be too hard.”

Kurt smirked at that and Nick scrunched his face in mock disgust.

“It’s moments like that when I’m reminded why I moved out last time,” Nick joked.

“Shut up,” Blaine pouted. “And hurry up, we should get going.”

**Author's Note:**

> After watching Girl Most Likely, I decided to write a Niff AU of it. In case you were interested, this was the note I left myself in my phone planning it out while half asleep:  
> "Fuck it I'm gonna write the Imogene Niff AU  
> Nick's happily dating Quinn until she dumps him and he partakes in self destructive behaviour (a fight because mmm bruises and black eyes)  
> He moves back in with Blaine and Kurt only to find they have a roommate by the name of Jeff. He interrupts Jeff and Sebastian casually making out (topless?)  
> Whilst trying to get his life back together, Nick starts spending more time with Jeff and they fall in love and all of that"


End file.
